Digital Chocolate Officially Launches Zombie Lane on Facebook

Zombie Lane is now officially available to play on the platform. The game will have you creating your own avatar that you will represent you as you fight the undead scourge, and help create a safe zone in your own backyard.

Zombie Lane is called a "survival" game in that you must do everything in your power to survive. You'll find new weapons (or will be given them) at various intervals (you start with a shovel, but are quickly upgraded to a shotgun, for instance), and you'll then use these weapons to attack the zombies that are forever rising from the ground around your yard. Your yard is fenced in, but zombies will try to break the fencing and come after your brains, as zombies most often do.

While the game may be fairly original in its design, Zombie Lane does take a few gameplay elements from other established Facebook games (like FrontierVille). You'll have an energy system that will only allow you to kill so many zombies at once, and you'll receive bonus coins, experience points, and energy as drops from completed tasks. Picking up these bonus items in rapid succession goes to build a combo meter (think bonus bar), which, when filled, rewards you with even more coins.As your starting yard looks as though it has been hit by a tornado, you'll receive a series of missions that take you through a fairly basic story in the game, introducing you to other characters, and seeing you repair your home and fence to actually withstand stronger attacks from the undead. You'll need to clear piles of rubble to gather bricks to rebuild the house, for instance. As you complete tasks, you'll become closer and closer to the state when you can bring your spouse into the game with you, which is as much of a nod to FrontierVille as I've ever seen in a game.

While you're trying to accomplish these construction tasks, it's likely that zombies will be trying to make you their lunch, so you can use your coins to purchase ammo refills for your shotgun, or use items like energy boosts from your inventory (they can also be purchased with Food - yes, there is time to farm while the zombie apocalypse is nigh). The game's premium currency is straight Facebook Credits, and these can be used to purchase permanent boosts to your total energy, decorations (as what's a restored neighborhood without bushes and Adirondack chairs on the porch?) and other items.

There are collection items to earn here (which also drop from defeated enemies), which earn you various amounts of coins and XP, and the game also comes with an achievement set, but you must level up to receive it.

All told, this isn't the first zombie themed Facebook game we've seen released, and we doubt it will be the last, but Digital Chocolate does seem to offer a sense of polish with this game as they do on all of their others. I'll likely be sticking with this one for a while, and you're more than welcome to join me.